Monday, March 29, 2010

Projection of Irrationality is Irrational

One of the games in propaganda is for the propagandist to project rationality onto his opponents and reason onto his followers.

This projection false images is, itself, a rather base and vile fallacy. Although the propagandist invests a great deal of effort into sculpting a self image of a rational creation, the propagandist engaged in projection is engaged in an irrational activity.

Anyway, I just watched a Book TV interview in which a wingnut named John Avlon projected the label "wingnut" on the people he dislikes.

His notion is that the body politic is being ripped assunder by the radicals on the extreme, failing to realize that people who play the middle against the end can be as bad as those who play the middle against the end.

I've repeated multiple times that the left/right dichtomy is a an artificial contrivance. Just as the conflict is a contrivance, the center is also a piece of fiction. Many of the most manipulative and dangerous people are those who stake their position in this mythical center and engage in the act of manipulating the ends by projecting false images.

I have little interest in reading a book by a wingnut who seeks influence by projecting the negative label of "wingnut" on people he dislikes. I tossed in an Amazon link on this post as Google added a fun amazon link generation thingy to blogspot.